Folly of isolationalist leaders exposed

For those of us who have spent much of our careers in diplomacy and foreign affairs, the most striking aspect of the coronavirus crisis is the lack of international co-ordination. China got things off to a terrible start by refusing assistance from the World Health Organisation when the virus first took hold. Since then, one nation after another has pursued its own separate course of action.

Most obviously, President Trump has announced travel bans applying to European countries without warning or consultation. The resulting queues at US airports were presumably most unhelpful when trying to combat a pandemic. The EU is now discussing the exclusion of non-EU citizens from the Schengen zone.

Whatever the truth of reports that Trump was interested in buying a German vaccine producer with a view to exclusive access for the United States to its future products, many other countries have stopped the export of facemasks and other equipment, including within the single market of the EU. The initial absence of practical support for Italy from her partners last week, including the apparent lack of concern from the European Central Bank, will have further undermined the faith of Italians in continental solidarity.

The accelerating global crisis will tell us a great deal about the 21st-century world — how strong our health services are, how much we support elderly people under threat, which companies made plans to survive a downturn, which governments are competent, which societies are resilient and how rapidly modern science can respond to a new danger. But one depressing feature has already been revealed for all to see: the habits of consultation and collaboration between world leaders we considered normal even five years ago have been seriously undermined.

This is not a problem that can be solved if each country acts in isolation from others. It is the greatest public health crisis of the post-war world and potentially the most serious economic and social crisis, too. By their nature, solutions to it can only work with global co-operation and a high degree of coordination.